I have received from the Controller's office the information on city employee pay that I requested. They sent me a 56 page document, both in paper form and as an Excel spreadsheet, listing each employee by name who made $100,000 or more working for the city in 2003. Also listed is how much of that was base pay, overtime, holiday pay, etc. It turns out there are 3,060 people whose pay totaled over $100,000.
By multiplying 3,060 by 99,999 and then subtracting that total from the total pay actually earned by these employees last year (an amount easily obtained by asking for a sum of the total pay column in the spreadsheet), I found out that the city could save over $56 million a year by limiting employee paychecks to five figures.
I used this information in a letter to the editor, below, which I just sent out to all the San Francisco media outlets in my address book.
Yours in liberty,
<<< Starchild >>>
Editor,
According to the San Francisco Controller's Office, 3,060 people made more than $100,000 working for the city government last year, including overtime and other special pay.
Meanwhile, Mayor Newsom and the Board of Supervisors have just passed a city budget that will not be balanced unless voters approve increases in sales and business taxes expected to cost the public $26 million this fiscal year. Shame on them.
There is a simpler, less painful way to balance the budget. All that has to be done to avoid these new taxes, and to restore many of the recent cuts in service, is to cap the pay of city employees at $99,999 a year. Such an adjustment would save San Francisco over $56 million annually -- precisely $56,686,726 using last year's figures.
Surely we can expect people in "public service" who already enjoy generous benefits and pension plans to get by on $99,999 a year. Why should San Franciscans making $8.50 an hour have to pay higher sales taxes in order to fatten the pockets of officials taking home six figure paychecks?
Sincerely,
Starchild
Candidate for School Board
3531 16th Street,
San Francisco, CA 94114
(415) 621-7932